shakespeare hamlet

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Introduction

How does Shakespeare create a tense atmosphere in act 1 scene1 of hamlet? Shakespeare makes a tense atmosphere by starting the play with a question. "Who's there?" By starting the play off with a question, Shakespeare makes the audience feel nervous and uncertain about what is going to happen. By using the question who's there? Makes the audience think, why can't he see him? Maybe it is because it's dark or foggy. Darkness and fog is a convention of horror films, writers and directors use darkness to make the audience feel tense and nervous, the fusion of darkness and fog make the character Barnardo feel scared and lost, these effects let off a spine tingling atmosphere in the audience. Shakespeare once more terrifies the audience by creating tension with their worst fears. "Tis now struck twelve" In the 17th century people believe that from twelve to one all the spirits and witches would start to roam the land; this was called the witching hour. ...read more.

Middle

By making the audience feel relax and calm, Shakespeare starts his scare combo. First of all he relaxes the audience to make them unaware of the shock their about to feel. He makes their heart rate and tension level zigzag by making it decrease then increase and so on. This method was first used by Shakespeare and is still used today by the best horror film creators there are. Shakespeare again makes a tense atmosphere by repeating line 1. "Who is there?" Shakespeare repeats line one now to break the relaxed atmosphere. He makes the audience feel nervous and uncertain about who is going to appear. By using the question. 'who is there?' He makes the audience think, is it a ghost? Or why cant they see? Shakespeare reuses darkness as a convention of horror films, writers and directors use darkness to make the audience feel tense and nervous, and so does Shakespeare. ...read more.

Conclusion

And 'again' means that this thing before. This scares the audience because their not sure if they will see this supernatural being appear again. The audience may be expecting it to come because its night and its close to witching hour. Once more Shakespeare calms the audience and settles the tension level. "I have seen nothing" Shakespeare relaxes the audience again by using the quote "I have seen nothing" this is a very good device because it relaxes the audience in different ways Shakespeare is now manipulating the luring them into his trap, so that he can frighten them. Barnardo says this to show that the ghost has not appeared yet. Shakespeare gives us information about how many time the ghost has appeared this is a great way to make the audiences tension level rise. "Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us." This quote gives us information about how many times the guards have seen the ghost appear. It says that it appeared twice, the writer uses the word 'dreaded' to describe encounter with the ghost. ...read more.

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